Sensing the pedestrians

A radar technology coupled with a vision processing system could provide an inexpensive way for automobile designers to provide a means for cars to ‘sense’ the presence of pedestrians and initiate automobile safety systems in advance of a collision.

This 'sensor fusion' technology developed by Cambridge Consultants uses its own CCL-Softcar forward-looking radar that is used to ‘cue’ a vision system, reducing the amount of real-time processing required and lowering the cost of the system.

Once initiated by the radar, the vision system captures images and then performs an object classification operation on them. The system then uses radar scatter information, object movement information, shape and colour matching to distinguish humans from other moving objects.

Because of the 20 to 25 metre range of the radar and the speed of the digital signal processor used to process the images, there is time to initiate active safety measures on-board a vehicle if an accident is predicted. Among the impact mitigation measures under discussion by the industry are tilting the bonnet to lessen the severity of impact, firing external airbags, and assisting braking.